


Voltage

by Vatteville



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Insects, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-14
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-29 08:13:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11436783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vatteville/pseuds/Vatteville
Summary: Everyone finds some way to break the rules. There are repercussions.





	1. The Calm

                 You couldn’t measure time reliably here – that you knew – but it had come to your attention that, every so often, at intervals you _thought_ were irregular, the Doctor would quite suddenly and silently disappear from the chase.

               Bill had first alerted you to this habit. “He leaves sometimes,” he’d said. “To check on his experiments, I reckon. It’s a good time to poke around, look for things.” Then he finished stitching up your torso and he fled as quickly as he had found you.

               Where did the Doctor _go_? you wondered, when you had the time to wonder. You started noticing his absence in the way the electrical charge left the air, a short respite from the near-constant buzzing that you could never quite get used to no matter how often it invaded your head. Sometimes you swore you heard groaning from the direction he had left in, distorted by electricity just like his strained laugh.

               Curiosity _would_ be the thing to do you in, wouldn’t it? You still remembered that time – earlier, when you were _really_ new – when you had decided to check out the basement just because you’d never been.

               That death had been deserved.

               Which, that was the thing, too – death didn’t really _scare_ you anymore – _well_. You were scared when you were caught, of course, or chased, but just the vague prospect of dying? It just didn’t do it for you.

               That was probably why the Entity had added the madness, come to think of it. A higher level of difficulty, something to create further suspense, deeper dread. It was impossible to predict at what point the Doctor’s voltage would peak _just_ so, jacking the wrong neurons and forcing your scream; there _was_ an aspect of fear in feeling your voice push from your throat unbidden.

               But at the end of it all you would just wind up on another hook, and waking up at the campfire, and having the entire cycle begin again, just the same as before.

* * *

               He was practically on top of you, had been for a while. He was learning, the Doctor, how to focus you down, pick a target, thin the ranks one by one. Your head was buzzing, but you could hear him even over that _and_ your heartbeat: a stuttering, unsteady electrical hum that poisoned the air with charge. He was laughing; your lips curled of their own accord.

               He lumbered past your niche and you bolted the other way, but he turned to chase. Feeling a scream tear past your lips, you launched yourself for one of the ledges – but then his grizzled hand met your shoulder and pulled you back, even as you kicked uselessly at his chest.

               Rather than hoist you over his shoulder, though, the Doctor held you at arm’s length by your shirtfront. You dared look at his eyes: perpetually open – staring, first at you, but then, as a particularly strong jolt of electricity permeated the air, _past_ you –

               He groaned.

               And suddenly his hands were off you, and he was running – no, _sprinting_ away, hands to his head, like –

               Like you often did when he forced your scream.

               Did he feel the effects of _his own voltage_?

               You had to follow – _had to_ – you’d been wondering about his absences since you’d learned about them. When would you ever get a better chance? Jake liked to say, “Know your enemy,” and even if you were pretty sure it was sarcasm, you would take _any_ chance to divert attention from your own inevitable slaughter.

* * *

               The Doctor led you through the Institute, taking a direct route to one of the “exits.” You watched from within the building as he huffed and spat for breath, kneeling in the Entity’s poor mockery of grassy earth.

               His hands went to his head again – that wire thing, of course, it certainly looked horrible – but he seemed unable to reach behind his head for the thing’s latch mechanism. It didn’t take you long to realize why – the wires in his arms evidently restricted his muscle movement; he physically _couldn’t_ angle his shoulders properly to remove the headpiece. He mumbled incoherently as he struggled against his own limitations, and you were stricken with pity – which, you reasoned grumpily, was probably inevitable at some point. You figured your mind had been on its way out for a while; only a matter of time before you started sympathizing with one killer or another.

               The air pulsed suddenly and your mouth felt swollen; your knees clenched, then buckled. The Doctor, too, seemed to feel the effects of the heightened charge, his arms rippling as the muscles spasmed, hands clutching at the rubbery grass before him. He hissed, slumping as the charge dissipated almost as quickly as it had come. He levered himself to his feet.

               Still stunned – in every sense – you could only watch as he turned around. You never stood a chance.

* * *

               He laughed when he saw you, but it didn’t – wasn’t – the way his head angled downwards, his eyes to the ground – it was _fake,_ you realized, _forced_. Maybe every laugh was forced. When was the last time _you_ had laughed?

               Though, as it was, you weren’t even close to _scared_ – or, well, maybe you were, but it was being vastly overridden by a mad surge of adrenaline and _triumph_ , even, because _you had just **learned**_ _something._

               Your voice broke twice but you managed; had you not just witnessed him so vulnerable you never would have even conceived of the words that came out of your mouth:

               “I can get that thing off your head.”

               He stopped short – he _flinched_. You… scared him?

               _You_ scared _him_?

               He moved towards you again, slower.

               “I can. If you want. But you have to let me escape this time.” If the stutter wasn’t enough, you thought darkly, maybe your shaking knees would convince him.

               The Doctor continued his advance, putting his hands together and rubbing like a cartoon villain. You took a half-step back, but your heel hit the wall. Shit. You could see the electricity building up between his cracked palms. He reached out, and you braced yourself for the shock–

               And, well, you _were_ shocked, when he grabbed some weird hospital machine (like you would know) from behind you and released such a strong discharge the thing revived, sparked, and burned out in less than a second.

               He knelt at your feet, palms to the floor. You _gaped_.

               He didn’t look at you, but tossed his head impatiently on his shoulders. Your hands shook as you reached for the clasps of the apparatus. They were simple – almost pitifully simple, it was cruel that the Doctor was prevented freedom simply for being unable to reach. Two long metal pins fell out as you released the clasps.

               You then had to crouch to get a look at the pins and screws on the Doctor’s face. The release clasps were just on the band around his head; he avoided your gaze as you unfastened them.

               He threw himself back from you as soon as you were done, shaking. Sparks flew down the wires in his arms – he’d been holding back the voltage, you realized, finding it almost hilariously out of character. The apparatus was thrown to the floor and crushed, first with a shoe and then with both hands, over and over until you could see his blood – you sometimes forgot they could bleed – stain the Institute tiles. He was silent all the while; from the lack of glow you could tell his eyes were shut, and you assumed the same of his mouth.

               How long had _that_ been, you wondered. You would never take blinking for granted again.

               Breathing heavily, the Doctor at length rose. He turned his head to you, eyes still shut.

               “You have to –“

               “Nn-hn,” he said – hummed – groaned? – in affirmation, waving a bloody hand. “Shhh.”

               You shut up. Of course you shut up. Holy fucking shit.

               He rubbed at his face with his fingers, stretching and soothing the skin around his eyes and mouth, blinking and licking his lips and pushing his eyelids down over his eyes and running his hands over his cheeks and _God,_ it was hard _not_ to feel sorry for him, who knew how long he’d been stuck in that thing?

               “Thhhk,” he managed, unsurprisingly struggling to form words. His lower lip didn’t seem to want to meet his upper lip, instead drooping and revealing his bottom teeth. His eyelids, however, were more than cooperative, hanging so low that only a sliver of light shone from between them.

               “Yeah. So. You let me go.” That was pushing it, you knew it was, but, shit, you’d come this far.

               “Yhhh,” he said. He kept running his hands over his face. Seeing it made you feel sick – like he was a real person instead of, you know, the fucked-up freaky electrical surgeon monster who terrorized and _murdered_ you constantly.

               You ran, and he didn’t follow.

* * *

               As it turned out, you didn’t need your risky bargain: nobody even came close to dying after the Doctor was freed from his confines. He sort of tried, but you couldn’t even call it that – he roamed around, sure, and the charge didn’t fade, but he didn’t chase. Didn’t even think about chasing, just roamed around and held his face in his hands and groaned (and laughed. But you blocked out the sound of his laughter because _you made him happy and he was killing you_ ).

               And when it came down to it, you didn’t even run _from_ him as you passed the gate and into the fog; and he didn’t seem to mind, only looking up briefly, and –

               And, and, _fuck_ , the light caught off his face and it was _wet_ ; he’d started _crying_ , and now you really didn’t like what you’d done at all.

               And you felt something shift in your shirt pocket and to your utmost horror it was one of the metal pins you had pulled from his apparatus and you held it in your hand as you walked into the fog.

               You wondered if you’d arrive back at the campfire with the rest of the survivors, or on the other side, wherever the Entity kept its killers.


	2. The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Big insects #TW for Ch2. I mean, the TW is big, not the bugs. But there are a fuckton of them. Oh, also, Doc POV.

            You hadn’t intended to hold up your end at all; were fully prepared to drive her into the ground and hook her like the rest, but you were caught entirely off-guard at the sheer relief of having the thing off of you. You hadn’t thought such relief was within your realm of perception; hadn’t thought yourself capable of processing such an overpowering feeling. Especially with the Entity always hovering over your shoulder.

            It _hurt_ , how good it was to close your eyes after who-knows-how-long. Your throat was so dry it wouldn’t wet again at first, just stuck your mouth closed like raw skin sticking, raw and burnt and so damn good you could die. Your eyes weren’t much better and very quickly you found yourself tearing up; though it helped greatly, the tears wouldn’t stop and you soon realized there was no chance of capturing anyone else, least of all the one who had helped you. Not that you cared; the murder was boring, anyway. Even the work at Léry – the _real_ Léry, not this pasty facsimile – had been better, damned as it was; you often wished for a job like the one you’d had then, Before, if only to break the monotony.

            Whatever. Whatever! You rubbed your tears into your eyes and licked your petrified lips with a tongue nearly as dead and thanked nobody in particular that it had _worked_ , you had done it. You knew she would be curious. You _knew_ she wouldn’t be able to resist an investigation – not so different from yourself in that way – you knew you could corner her and you _knew_ you could look pitiful and _you had_ , you had and it worked; it worked it worked _it worked_.

            The electricity was still there, of course, and the wires in your arms, but neither of those mattered because now you could sleep between trials – you could _sleep_ between trials, _really sleep—_

            You decided to see them off, the targets. The one you had talked to, she had the pin in her pocket as she walked – walked! Like she wasn’t even afraid – into the Fog; you had planted it there so that the Entity might have a harder time finding it, bought yourself a little time – whatever “time” counted for here.

            Sleep, you supposed. How long had it been since you slept properly? Before Léry, you thought, bitterly, grimacing and wincing at the strain in your jaw. Before the _real_ Léry. Nobody would let you sleep.

            Things faded as the trial ended, as they usually did. You were – not floating, because there was nothing to float _in_ , but you were existing somewhere without moving. You regarded this space as something of a storage unit; where It put you when you weren’t in use. You figured the solitude was one of its tactics but there were times when it put you with one or more of the Others, not the targets but others like you. In theory you could commiserate with them, but none of them ever talked to you, never even looked at you.

            But you were tired – so brutally tired, like you were drowning, like sleep was the water your head was being held under – and the Space was beyond silent (sound didn’t exist there) and just barely warm (like a fresh corpse) and it was so easy to curl up in the place you were not-floating in and pass out.

* * *

            The light started to wake you up, and the sound forced your eyes open, but the thing that really snapped you out of it was the _pain_.

            First numbing, everywhere, like every nerve had been disconnected, and then just straight-up, burning pain. It was worst in your chest; you knew you didn’t need your heart anymore – you had checked – but it still hurt to have it stop, start, and stutter. Like a massive growth had formed in your torso, it seemed to squeeze the rest of your organs, winding you, making you curl back up – or try to; you found nothing worked like your brain told it to, and every extremity was white-hot like it was simultaneously frozen and aflame and you didn't know what was happening and when it stopped it was so overwhelming a loss of sensation that you thought you had died.

            You hadn’t.

            You were forced awake somehow and you were on your feet. Standing. Somewhere – the “where” wasn’t important; it was only a point of reference. The Others were watching, somewhere Else; you knew how _that_ worked, had used more or less the same tactic on prisoners at Lery.

            Your head hurt, around the curve of your brow and in your sinuses. But something had – it was – the way your hands were buzzing—

            It had _lowered_ the voltage, you realized, though not before _striking you with lightning_ – bitterly, you tried to resign yourself to whatever punishment It planned to dole out.

            You didn’t notice at first. Thought it was just more waves of its roiling Fog, but as it approached you could _hear_ it, a quiet hum – not unlike the electrical hum that followed you constantly, but softer – and then you could see them and you almost laughed, it was so disgustingly _bizarre_.

_Moths._

            A swarm – a _cloud_ of white moths, flocking from the darkness with that disturbing arthropod passion – that disjointed, frenzied approach. It had made hundreds, maybe even thousands of moths and it had made them _perfectly_ , couldn’t even make Lery’s _grass_ right but it could make enough moths to white out your vision and every single one of them was _exactly_ , _disturbingly correct_.

            They circled you, spiraled, their movements so uncannily irregular that you really did laugh, some disturbed, dark humor-thing that caught in your throat so badly you almost gagged—

            And there they were, so close you couldn’t move lest touch them, and you realized they _weren’t_ perfect, not really, because not a single desperate, obsessed wingbeat produced even the slightest wind, and the space around you was as still as if nothing was there, and still not one of them touched you—

            You saw it, wavering and shivering through the air. You knew it would be the First, and it fell right at you as soon as you realized. There was a second when it landed on your nose, a ridiculous, unrealistically long second where you just stared at it, white wings frozen as it tried to fold them, feathery antennae pulled back, eyes dark with some _perverse satisfaction_ —

            And then it _exploded_ —

            And the rest _descended_ —

            One by one, but so fast and so numbered that they couldn’t be differentiated, the moths flew to you – _fell_ to you, so driven they were – and died, exploding on impact as the voltage permeated their small bodies. Soon not only were the ones closest to you being zapped, but their neighbors, still in flight, brushing too close to a hapless victim, setting off chains that extended yards and yards into the lepidopteran hurricane. Though you couldn’t see them, and the sound of each moth exploding blended into an endless death-rumble, you could _feel_ each insect alight on your skin, and _feel_ each fatal discharge of electricity that followed, even through your coat.

            The noise, _the noise_! An ugly distorted cat’s purr that was only magnified by the hum of your own voltage – the cause, the catalyst – that shook you from the ground up.

            Each dead insect fell on you or near you, in the standing-space; their detached legs and wings and heads and all manner of lymph-soaked organs stuck to your skin and clothes. The blood was cold; icy, even, as it hit you; you tried to shield your face but found your elbows wouldn’t bend; the wires – the _wires!_ – you roared at the indignity and choked as a moth landed on your lower lip and ruptured right into your mouth; gagged, spat, there was no taste but the scales flaked off the dead wings and coated your mouth. The legs and body you could spit out onto the growing pile of corpses but the scales were stuck by your spit, like so many tiny hairs, itching and tickling at the back of your throat and under your tongue, and as you hissed and retched _more_ moths dove for your lips and exploded there; your nose clogged with the feathery remnants; your eyes; your ears; anything that was exposed was covered in insect viscera.

            You hissed, reeling and staggering; felt the bodies crunching and squishing under your feet. You slipped; It _made_ you slip, and fell into the moths with a revolting crunch-splash that would’ve made you gag if you weren’t retching already. You rolled over and tried to push yourself up but as your hands sank wrist-deep into the countless moth bodies, a veritable ocean of limbs and lymph, you faltered. The gore oozed between your fingers and the chitin stabbed your skin and the soft scales lined your airways; the juxtaposition of sensations overcame you and you froze. Your mind was blank but you weren’t _gone_ , you were captured there, in that eternal moment, with the moths and the voltage and the Entity and – somewhere – the Others.

            It coaxed you into the pile; somehow both amused and angry. You sank down into the moths. The scales were everywhere; the pale moth blood was soaking through your coat. Your head rested on countless dead insects, just a fraction of countless more.

            “Fine,” you said, or perhaps thought, or perhaps It was forcing your words. “Fine. Put it back on.” That was all it wanted, really – not the apparatus, your acquiescence. You curled up, feeling the crunching and slushing of bodies around you, and waited for it to take you back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know 2nd-person isn't everybody's favorite, but I needed this work to be forced on the reader.


End file.
